About Face (8 page)

I thought I saw him make a move. I looked up. He hadn't. As I made eye contact, he slipped on sunglasses. He didn't pretend to look away, but kept his focus locked on me.

I dropped the sneakers and began walking, clutching the paper
bags against my torso. The crowd had grown thicker, and I wasn't sure exactly where I was. Using the bags like bumpers to nudge past people, I contorted my body to minimize jostling Neo's carrier, and I headed in the direction from which I thought I'd come.

Who was this guy?

How long had he been following me?

A couple folks had words for me as I squeezed by, but I paid them no attention. When I got to the end of the aisle, I checked for my pursuer. He, too, was making his way through the crowd.

Under the scorching sun, I kept pressing. With each step, the absurdity and seriousness of the situation became more apparent. My sense of reason told me to maintain a decent pace as not to attract unwanted attention to myself. My survival instincts, which I had come to rely on so heavily these last few weeks, suggested barreling through people to create as much distance as possible between me and Red.

Through the flimsy rubber soles of the flip-flops I now felt every ripple, every pebble, of the uneven earth of the outdoor market's floor. Every few steps one of my ankles threatened to roll. The thought of having to outrun this guy was a daunting one.

My senses went into overdrive. I honed in on the foot traffic patterns all around me. Tommy always said the best leaders know when to let others lead. I identified a young couple a few people away to my left at exactly nine o'clock that seemed to be in a hurry. In only seconds they had made it to eleven o'clock.

Locals.

I pushed myself forward diagonally, falling in behind them. Their approach was one of anticipation from obvious experience, an understanding of where tiny holes would open in the crowd right before they did, most likely due to booth location. Their route was anything but straight, more like an ambulance moving through parking lot traffic in Midtown Manhattan.

After about a hundred feet, a sign above the sea of heads in front of me, off to my right, caught my eye.

“Salles de Bains.”

Bathrooms.

I looked behind me. No immediate sign of Red. Pretending to look for something I'd dropped, I crouched down and shooed legs away left and right as I moved forward. I made my way to the edge of the crowd. I sprung from the fringe of Les Puces. I raced toward the sign.

I rounded a corner and entered a hallway leading into a small, sandstone building. Straight ahead was a door that had a small plaque on it with a charcoal drawing of a woman twirling, her summer dress fanned out. Jutting off left just before the ladies' room was another hallway. On the wall before the turn was an arrow and another plaque marked with a charcoal drawing—this time a guy in a seersucker suit.

Two steps into the hallway I stopped. I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes, then lifted up my t-shirt and wiped the sweat off my face. I hadn't even been in France twelve hours. Was I nothing more than a fugitive, foolish to think I'd ever get a moment's peace again?

I tapped the back of my head against the wall, snapping myself back into the moment. I needed to make my move now. If Red had kept up with me, he'd already be upon me.

I sucked in a breath. I peeked around the corner. There he was.

No more than twenty feet away.

With speed and precision, I placed the bags down. Then Neo's carrier. The idea I might have to run flashed in my mind. I kicked off the flip-flops, deciding I'd be better off barefoot.

Red turned the corner. Before he could react to my presence, I wrapped my right hand around his neck. I dug in, placing my left forearm across his chest and slamming him to the wall. His sunglasses went flying. My thumb and index fingers were so far up under his jawbone I could feel his larynx. His wide eyes confirmed we were thinking the same thing. That I could crush it.

“Who the fuck are you?” I snarled, right up in his face.

No response. His eyes were steely, hard.

I grabbed his shirt with my left hand. Never moving my right
hand, I pulled him a foot forward then drove him back into the wall. I could leave no question as to who was in charge. I had already learned the hard way: the second anyone gets an inch they become a wild card.

“I mean it, motherfucker,” I growled. My own fear had me squeezing tighter. “I need to know who you are. Right now.”

He wasn't gasping, but I could tell he was having trouble breathing. Trying with everything he had to move forward, he took a swipe at me. I fended off his right hand by lifting my left elbow as I kept him pinned to the wall. Nonetheless, as his fist opened into a reaching hand, his fingernails raked the front of my face. The sting of the instant, shallow wound was sharp.

Our faces were so close we could feel, hear each other's every breath. My forearm felt his wildly beating heart. I squeezed harder yet. I was officially choking him. The sooner this guy accepted I was in control, the sooner I'd reward him with just enough air to offer his identity. I felt a streak of blood running into the corner of my mouth. I stuck out my tongue and lapped it up.

I was a warrior now. Not because I wanted to be. Because I had to be.

“I don't want to hurt you,” I pushed out through clenched teeth. “But I will. Last chance. Who are you?”

I felt Red's body start to weaken, to relent. He raised his hands in surrender. I eased my grip just enough to let in a swallow of air.

“Michel Bourdoin,” he said, raspy. “Michel Bourdoin,” he repeated.

“What do you want, Michel Bourdoin?” I said, no space between his last word and my first.

“Your cap,” he said.

I was confused. My head twitched as I searched for words. My thoughts started going wild. My cap? Could there be something hidden in my cap? Was this another
Danish Jubilee Egg
, another plant job of some sort? How? I had bought it randomly at the airport in the States before my departure.

“What about my cap?” I asked.

“It is zee Yankees—no?” he asked with a heavy French accent. “Zee New York Yankees?”

“The Yankees,” I answered. “Right. So?”

“I have never been to New York. My son, he ees six years old. He loves zee American baseball, especially zee New York Yankees. I am sorry if I—”

I didn't believe him. I couldn't.

“Bullshit!” I barked right in his face, tightening my grip again and purposely spraying spit in his face. “Who the fuck are you? Who the fuck are you working for?”

“Please! Please!” he pleaded, his straining neck taut against my palm. He forced his arms farther in the air. “I am Michel Bourdoin. Take out my wallet and see for yourself. Please! I mean you absolutely no harm, I was—”

I slammed him into the wall again.

“First you watched me. Then you followed me.”

“I know. I'm sorry. It's just that—eef—I, I just figured that—I can't ever find a New York Yankees cap around here. Please—I'll give you fifty euros for it. Seventy-five! I don't make much money, but—”

The sincerity in his voice caught me off guard. He
had
watched me. He
had
followed me. Both of those acts could have been about exactly what he was proclaiming. At that moment, something about my new reality slapped me across the face. As long as I remained Jonah Gray, anyone and everyone I would ever come across again would be the enemy until I could prove otherwise. I couldn't trust anyone.

Anyone.

God, that feeling sucked.

I could have crushed this guy's windpipe. Either he could act on the level of De Niro or all he genuinely cared about was getting this cap for his boy. In a heartbeat my fear turned to envy. I couldn't help acknowledging what a special love that must be.

Did my father ever feel that way about me? Ever?

His words tapered off. I backed off. Mortified, without another
word, I gave him the hat. Even though I had straight-up assaulted this guy, he still tried to give me cash, which I denied. I could barely look him in the eye again. I picked up Neo's carrier, then the stuffed brown paper bags, and was on my way.

Twenty minutes later I was back in my suite. I hung the “Privacy” sign, locked the door behind me, let Neo out of his carrier, pulled everything out of the minibar and restocked it with my fresh booty. Over the course of the next thirty-six hours, I did little more than eat salad and crudités with fresh lemon juice as dressing out on the terrace as I watched the boats move around the gulf endlessly, like pieces on some giant chessboard. The more I tried to devise a plan, the more I realized I had no idea what to do, or how to think like a criminal on the run. Without any sleep day had run into night, then well into day again. And all I had achieved was an enormous headache.

N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY
2013

The shades are down, the cabin dark, as the wheels touch the ground. Cobus and I are still steeped in our discussion. I'm listening, but I don't hear him. All I can think about is what waits outside. I can feel the goose bumps all over my body.

I'm home.

After all the running, all the scheming, all the strategizing, all the lying, all the re-creating, all the research, all the misunderstanding, all the gratitude, all the guilt, all the fighting, all the questions, all the answers, all the choices, all the soul-searching, all the trusting, all the dreams, all the nightmares, all the praying, all the clawing, all the scratching, all the gains, all the losses, all the struggling, all the remorse, all the determination, all the grief, all the yearning, all the sorrow, all the pain.

I'm home.

I want to jump from my seat, blast through the door, and race toward everyone and everything I left behind. My partners. My best friend since childhood, L. I want to find Perry. I have no idea if she's alive or dead but I need to find her. I want to seek out Detective Morante and give him the real story behind the dirty cop
pulled from the East River. Animal that he was or not, I want to visit my father's grave. “Fuck all of you,” I want to scream, then steal the first car I can get my hands on and head to Baltimore to get a look at the missing Fabergé Easter Eggs.

I reach inside my suit jacket, into the inside right pocket, and touch the silver pen Scott Green gave me before blowing his own head open. It's in the same pocket as my iPhone. As well as a state-of-the-art Swiss-Axe, Triplet Hawk, 10x jeweler's loupe.

So much to do. So little time.

“Where's the little guy?” asks Cobus, breaking me from my thoughts.

“What?”

“The little guy. Aldo. Who's he staying with now that Tess and Johan left?”

After Perry and Max's abduction, I told Cobus that Tess had left me. That I was too focused on my work and she needed more. Turning my back on what happened to Perry was one of the hardest choices I ever made. But I was in no position to start explaining things to people, nor did I want her husband to get wind of what had happened to her and their child if he wasn't involved—as he was the one she was running from.

Were Perry and Max taken as a message to me? Was this the work of her husband? Someone else? Are they safe? Are they dead? I have no idea. But I also knew I would be better served to wait until the day I made it back to the States so Jonah Gray could find out as opposed to Ivan Janse starting with the Dutch police.

“He's home with Laura.”

I hate leaving the little guy behind. But God only knows what awaits me on this trip. I've put him in harm's way enough over the years, and he's remained loyal as ever. My little trooper, no longer a spring chicken in the world of dogs, has earned his time for drama-free relaxation.

And I fully intend on seeing him again. Soon.

“Right. Laura.”

I hear a whir as the shades slowly ascend. The early evening,
American light fills the cabin. It washes over us, over me, as if welcoming Jonah Gray and his new confidant Ivan Janse with open arms.

Customs officials board the jet, and we clear immigration on the tarmac. We exit the Gulfstream and walk down the stairs. There are two black Escalades waiting for us.

“I arranged for a separate car before we left,” Arnon says, a bulging briefcase in each hand. “As you know, Mr. Green's unexpected death set us back some these last few days. We're at too critical a stage in this process and there is much work to be handled as we move toward closing. I was able to talk opposing counsel into foregoing this evening's dinner party in the interest of making headway, to which they agreed.”

“Absolutely,” Cobus says. “Great. Then we'll see you downstairs for breakfast in the morning before we head to GlassWell's offices.”

“Of course,” Arnon replied. “Enjoy the evening.”

Arnon walks to the second Escalade. After the driver opens the doors to the first, Cobus and I climb in.

Like a bullet from the barrel, The Queens-Midtown Tunnel shoots our Escalade out into the heart of New York City. Looking out the tinted window away from Cobus, part of me—the old me, Jonah Gray—can't help from letting a slight sneer find my face. These buildings, this city, it was all mine once. Mine to manipulate, mine to build, mine to conquer. This is the city I was raised in, the city where I learned to work people over left and right to get everything I needed, wanted. I feel a pang in my gut. Suddenly, I'm ashamed of the sneer on my face.

These buildings, this bustling, thriving city all around me—I had been given one of the greatest gifts of all in life. To be born and raised in New York City. The greatest city in the world. Fair or not—cursed, damned, or simply victim of my own destiny—I was forced to leave not only my home, but the place everyone in the world hopes to get a chance to make it to for one reason. To shine.
If there was anything I'd learned from losing this city it was one thing.